SCHOOLCHILDREN have been busy supporting a former pupil’s efforts to help orphans in Ghana.

Students at Bryn Hafren Comprehensive, Barry, have raised £1,216.72 to support Tracey Ricketts’ work in Africa.

Tracey, 26, who used to attend the school, has given up her assistant manager job at Peacocks in Cardiff and re-mortgaged her house in Barry to work with orphans in the tiny Ghanaian village of Agroyesum.

The students decided to raise money to help Tracey after she explained her African work at a school assembly.

Lin Richards, personal assistant to the school’s headteacher, said: “The big thing for the pupils was when she told them how much could be done with £1,000.”